Link Gumbo 12/27/10 - Spending The Day Returning Toonces Merchandise

In an age where we have PDAs, laptops, smart phones, fax machines, etc. oh not to mention a month long championship basketball tournament DURING the semester (are basketball players smarter or do we care less about their education?), if you use the education/missing classes argument during a period when the vast majority of schools are out of session, it’s not only ingenious but also suspends reality.

Also, bragging rights are invariably what competition is all about, otherwise again, you have to suspend reality for the reasons why we all watch & or why people play in the 1st place.

Yes people have to pay the bills, that would be the sponsors. That’s why they’re called sponsors. To have a school buy a share of the sponsorship means the sponsor is only a part donor & not a sponsor. Also, you must’ve glossed over the part about sponsorship in the book. If somebody can’t pay a 200k sponsorship, hey maybe the bowl should take sponsors at 100k or 50k or whatever they can take. Like the book states “there’s a reason a truck stop sponsors the Humanitarian Bowl & not the Rose Bowl.”

Players risking injury is a reson not to have a playoff? What kind of pussy argument is that? So I guess we end spring ball & August camp too? Or even mid-week full pads practice. I mean, I’m not even sure why players even leave their apartment or go out on the weekends too, you risk death not just injury! OMG! Life is so scary!

So to answer in whose interest is the playoff system; it’s in three places- 1. the school who would make money by having on campus games (away game payouts would be similar to “rent-a-win” fees where traveling schools can make money since a playoff revenue would be increased b/c of tv contracts, etc. [I doubt you really read the book if you didn’t process all this information], 2. the fans of teams that make the playoffs, b/c that’s why we all watch in the first place [it doesn’t take a genius nor a scientific study to figure out as a team gets better more people become interested, so with a playoff, more interest would continue] & 3. the players, b/c nobody plays just to play, if you believe that you’re stuck in the 1950s or have never played at a high competitive level at any level [hell, going to “State” was why we played in high school]

Oh actually it serves 4, the 4th being competition itself since I guess you think it’s somehow disingenuous to want a playoff when there is a championship in every other NCAA sport in every division bar one- D-I football. Yes, a playoff in the crown jewel of NCAA’s governed sports is certainly preposterous, what was I thinking?!

Furthermore, saying college football is doomed isn’t honesty, it’s opinion. A disingenious one at that b/c at the very least it would end up as it originally started- non-scholarship players playing. But with ticket prices & tv money & conference & booster money being thrown around, it isn’t going anywhere any time soon. If something like college football is doomed, it means a whole lot of other stuff more important to the every day existence of this country are doomed, since there has been a huge influx of tv money from the likes of ESPN. Only big BCS bowls lose out with a playoff & even the former Rose Bowl CEO quoted in Wetzel’s book admitted the Rose Bowl would survive, just not attain the same level of profits they currently do.

And I’m sorry but your point about LSU coming out 7th in a playoff versus 10th in a BCS system is absurdly asinine. In a playoff system it would be determind on the field where there can be very little argument- you played, you ended up 7th. The playoff system put forth by Wetzel & others that use a 16-team playoff with 11 conference champions & 5 at-large bids (which could still use a similar formula to the BCS) would be way better than the heavy reliance on human polls. Like the book argues, the 5 at-large bids would be a debate about who’s the 2nd best team in a given conference not which 6th best team in a conference gets to go the NCAA basketball tournament. In a BCS system we may have finished 10th b/c well this year the formulas were heavy on records vs. OOC teams that have consecutive vowels in their mascot’s name. Or maybe the formula was heavy on # of times Lee Corso used them in the not so fast my friend punch line on Gameday. Point is, I would care a whole helluva lot more if you finish 7th in a playoff where you settel it on the field versus #10 in a manner where on field performance is couple with some kooky formula (wow, it’s like figure skating or diving voting or something! Yay!). So, a playoff would serve BCS conference AND mid-majors too since their champions would get an automatic invite too.

So, in conclusion, I highly doubt you read Wetzel’s book at all.

but read Wetzel’s book. It just shows how preposterous the bowl system is vs. a playoff.

All playoff proponents like myself are arguing is have one like you have in your other 3 subdivisions of football. If it can be done in the other divisions & if you can have championships DURING the semester in other sports, you can certainly have one when most schools are NOT in session.

And college football will most certainly continue b/c if nothing else, politicians need sports like it for the bread & circus factor to continually try & distract from their ruining of people’s lives….

wont college football be around again?